


Following The Flock

by CharbroilLaFlamme



Series: Bioshock: Measurement of A Father [19]
Category: BioShock 1 & 2 (Video Games)
Genre: BioShock References, BioShock Spoilers, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Rapture (BioShock)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 14:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15798522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharbroilLaFlamme/pseuds/CharbroilLaFlamme
Summary: Tenenbaum finds out that Gil talked to Lamb even after she warned him.





	Following The Flock

“What has you this way?” Tenenbaum asked.

If Gil was translating it well enough—she was asking why he was so withdrawn as of late.

“Well, to be fair,” Gil said distractedly, “I’ve been thinking about what you said, about Epsilon remembering.”

“Just call him Sinclair,” Tenenbaum insisted, “it doesn’t sound right to call him Epsilon.”

Gil agreed, but he had been dissociating himself from Sinclair lately. “I’d prefer to call him Epsilon.”

Tenenbaum drew her attention to the small blue trinket on his desk, hidden amongst used-up pens and folds of paper.

“It is _Sofia_.” She said in realisation. “What _stupidity_ has she put in your head?”

Gil had hoped not to have Sofia brought up. He had intense, mixed feelings about the woman—wondering what she was trying to work towards. But he had his reservations, he had a hard time believing Lamb as anything but the sincere, motherly saint she tried to act as. She mentioned a daughter, but spoke more about her as a vessel. Something of a messiah to the rest of Lamb’s cult of unity.

Gil wondered if this was an abstract way of defining sacrifice.

“No nonsense, Tenenbaum,” he said after a while, “Lamb has plans.” Even to himself, it sounded strange to say.

“ _Mein Gott_ —Alexander,” she said after a moment of staring Gil in the eyes, “you went to her, didn’t you?” She asked sharply.

“Yes.”

“Even after I warned against it?”

Gil quietly returned to scribbling on the paper.

Tenenbaum frustratedly tossed her hands in the air. “Why do I bother? You do not see the falsehoods she’s putting into your head.”

Gil sighed. “She put it simpler, that they’re _blessed_ ,” he mocked the word unintentionally, “they don’t... see anything beyond their daughters—“

“Listen to yourself, _idiot_.” Tenenbaum snipped into his monologue. “You don’t actually believe what she says, do you?” She had half a mind to cuff the back of Gil’s head.

“I don’t know—perhaps?”

“Alexander,” Tenenbaum said softly, “you came to me, asking how to reverse the process, all of that drive—undone, by Sofia. Was it just easier to be forgiven for your mistakes than to fix them?”

Gil shamefully cast his eyes away from Tenenbaum.

“Lamb is _not_ helping you, Alexander—she is using you. I can promise you that once you reach the end of your usefulness, she will leave you behind.” She said. “I have been working on methods we can use to cure a Protector, Alexander.”

Gil seemed to react, suddenly feeling profoundly silly, listening to Tenenbaum, wondering if she would ever even understand Gil’s stance on the issue. His feelings—a muddle. With Tenenbaum urging him to relinquish the safety Lamb made him feel.

“I only want to help you.”

To Gil, her help was unwanted, Lamb made him feel something more than regret for what he’d done. Tenenbaum, though prudent and honest, lacked the smoke-and-mirrors act that Lamb used. Tenenbaum had succeeded in making him feel worse. Where Lamb would have... coddled him.

He had done something that could be misconstrued as evil, but was so much more under Sofia’s sage scrutiny.

“I know,” Gil admitted. “And it is appreciated, really. But I think that releasing them would break something within the subject. The mirage that makes them think they mean something to someone, shattered, rendered irreparable. Who knows what Sinclair would do—what Topside would do—if they were restored... it would be _chaos_.”

“Free will, Alexander. Lamb has really been going to work, hasn’t she?” She shook her head ashamedly. “You had the free will to put them into the suits, why can you not find it in yourself to fix them? We have choices for a reason. And I chose to try to repent for my mistakes in the end.”

“I see,” Gil said, he had begun to tune her out.

Tenenbaum furrowed her brows. “But if this is what you want, then fine. You may have your feverish... infatuation with Lamb. Do not say I didn’t warn you.”


End file.
